beau_reads_books's reviews
209 reviews

The Queen by Nick Cutter

Go to review page

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

“She was the queen of all worlds, both the living and the dead. The hands on the clock bent to her. And I did, too.”

Ooo wee, Nick Cutter the freak bitch you are! Having only read “The Deep” and “The Troop” before this, and adoring both, I kind of had an idea of what I would be getting into and I was pleasantly proven wrong! It’s hard to say the books are similar, but Cutter does have thematic styles I’ve come to look forward to reading. I was able to really pour over this one with a dear friend on our Brand New Book Club maiden voyage, and I can’t recommend over-analyzing the idiosyncrasies of freak nasty shit enough.

The authentic inner/outer dialogues of Gen Z-ers, at least what I’ve been able to glean from TikTok for the past several years, added a frustratingly complex dynamic to the story; something about the bizarro cadence of teenager-speak cranked the narrative vibe into overdrive: everything is dealt in extremes, highs and lows, frighteningly manic. As Plum would say, “This shit is crazy, amirite?” 

Cutter is an expert at taking completely fucking whackadoo concepts and making them do utterly believable it’s scary. But, there were swaths of over-detailing in critical action scenes that pulled me away from the narrative and into some confusion. The difficulty in understanding exactly what was happening on the page took some of the horror away, but that may have been by design. Cutter is a great writer, and he wants you to see it all, but that sometimes creates a word soup that’s hard to really navigate. 

Joryn’s Blurb: I wanted more bug fucking! 

And didn’t we all :D

4/5 “I am real l am real l am real. 
         I am still a real girl.” 🥹
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie

Go to review page

mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot

4.0

“’I am an imbecile, my friend! If ever there was love and grief in a woman's voice, I heard it then. My little idea was all wrong. Eh bien! I must start again!’”

Hercule Poirot no. 2! Surprisingly very little to do with golf, as its title would suggest (also, unfortunately, because that would have made my supplemental image search a lot easier, then again, I don’t know jack crap about golf, but I digress.) Mysterious letters, mistaken identities, and one increasingly annoying sidekick, “Links” follows Christie’s maiden Poirot adventure by three years, and some of her previous tactics carry over in what will eventually become a perfected mystery formula. Super accessible, intrinsically clever, amazing how well these read over 100 years later!

Hastings being the representation of the misogynistic commentary Christie doubtlessly endured throughout her career is disappointing but, in turn, creates an endearing foil for Poirot’s “I support women’s rights and women’s wrongs” attitude. I do recall that Hastings won’t be featured in every single Poirot novel, so… silver linings.

4/5 “’It is that, my friend, is it not? It is love that has come not as you imagined it, all cock-a-hoop with fine feathers, but sadly, with bleeding feet. Well, well—I warned you.’”
Behold the Void by Philip Fracassi

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A community pool with something dark lurking. New mothers and old mothers, good mothers and bad mothers. Schrodinger’s panic room. Ecofeminism. Burgeoning serial killers, bad husbands, intermediate telekinesis. Things where they shouldn’t be, ever, not then, and certainly not now. And, when I needed it the most in my hour of need, mercy…maybe.

Fracassi’s ability to create unique characters stapled to bizarre narratives, with layered depths within relatively small parameters, is undeniably remarkable. Short stories can go awry painfully quickly for lack of character strength/development and story hook, but Fracassi nails it every time. It’s the equivalent of peeking through my fingers at a scary movie, sympathizing with the characters and simultaneously feeling relieved it’s not happening to me.

Fracassi is also, like, the bleakest fuckin’ dude out there. Master-crafter of stories that, after the very last word, had me whispering, “Okay well, that was fucking insane,” before hurriedly turning the page to start the next one. “Void” holds you tight in its clamped maw, an omnipresent, stark destruction of innocence awaiting every shake of its head. To take the words straight from Laird Barron’s introduction: “Nobody is safe and nothing is sacred. Enjoy the ride.”

5/5 I hate giving 5stars to a book I could truly only recommend to maybe 3 people in good faith but here we are, and CW/TW for like everything.
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Murder Is Binding by Lorna Barrett

Go to review page

medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

1.5

I wanted to get into a cozy series that I could wedge in between darker thriller/horror novels, and the “Booktown Mysteries” seemed a reasonable option. Super cool concept: a little New Hampshire town catering to various booksellers with their own niche genre-focused stores (history, cooking, mystery, etc.), small-town dynamics, and then a good old-fashioned gasp-a-murder! The “bookseller turned suspect turned amateur detective” narrative was right up my alley and there were several decent cliffhanger/twists peppered throughout. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll end up using this series for my fluff pieces.

Simply put, I’m not a fan of the protagonist: unnecessarily bitchy and cruel. The conflict between her and her sister, essentially the protagonists of the story, seems petty and underwritten. Perhaps it was to show a more complex side to MC Tricia, but frankly, it earned her no sympathy points from me. If it wasn’t that Angelica was too annoying to be around, it was that she was too fat to have found love before Tricia. Boring and overplayed. The narrative seemed way too unrealistic to get lost in, with several situations just feeling bizarre enough to take you right out of the story: sending your regular elderly patron down the street to randomly help at a different bookstore, interrogating someone you do not know, that you understand to be senile, in an assisted living home and that just being okay and normal to do??, the entire situation with the sheriff??? Not my cup of tea.

2/5 Non-stop fat comments and a random r-slur, in 2008 no less, closed this series right at the start for me. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand

Go to review page

dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

“‘It's not what I thought it would be like. It knows we're here. You feel it, right?’”

Freaky fast read. Obsessively chugged through to the finish, the feeling of something lingering in the corner of my eye the entire time. Hand similarly portrays the undulating dread and decaying mental fortitude mastered in Shirley Jackson’s 1959 prototype, “The Haunting of Hill House”, which, admittedly, I haven’t read again since high school (but have been meaning to pick back up, of course.) Contemporary identity representation and dialogue matched well with the special flair of antiquity haunted houses cultivate. A few pops of terrifying imagery, nothing over the top, kept this novel in the cozy corner of the (haunted) room. 

Characters were enh. I don’t think Hand quite matched the character depth/development of Jackson, which probably wasn’t the intention. I understand the change in their personalities is an important plot point, but I wish we were given more of a window into them before to make that impact more profound.

4/5 I think Hand’s “Hill” is a perfectly fine addition to the canon, and if anything, will inspire readers to experience the original for the first time or, like me, revisit like an old friend. 
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Not a Speck of Light: Stories by Laird Barron

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

"Dying isn't easy for most people. Instinct is a real bitch and she wants to live.”

What a beautifully bizarre brain Laird Barron keeps in his skull. But then again, he’s from Alaska so…it tracks. While this novel transcends time and space (on occasion) it also explores the grimdark scenery of The Last Frontier, the 49th nightmare state, home of the midnight sun and the polar night: Alaska herself! Come for the winding, often inter-connected, stories of wilderness, women being a little bad, maybe the devil?, and so many dogs (…CW.) Stay for the truly unique and deliciously cosmic mythos that Barron expertly crafts throughout these sixteen stories.

“Girls Without Their Faces On,” “Swift to Chase,” and “Don’t Make Me Assume My Ultimate Form” are the standouts for me, but it was hard to choose just three. I would follow Jessica Mace with devotion until the end of time…and then the time after that…and so forth. Additionally, I will think about “Tiptoe” for the rest of my life, every single paragraph, specifically the last page and a half of that multi-generational freakshow. 

A lot of the punch was surreptitiously veiled behind subtext, and for some of these stories, I needed that subtext to be IN-text. Barron’s prose didn’t hold back, however, and I often found myself thinking, “Get to the point,” but then the point would come and I’d say, “Oh, no.” Be careful what you wish for, I suppose.

4/5 “Because, there's a war on. It's as tiny and savage as colonies of insects going at it. I'd rather not be on the side that gets annihilated. But yeah, we're gonna lose. Wanna fuck?”
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
Desert Star by Michael Connelly

Go to review page

dark informative mysterious fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

"’It's an angry world,’ Tommy said. ‘People do things you'd never expect.’"

This was recommended to me by a coworker and thought no better time to crack it open than when on a flight to sunny, sunny California: home of famous Connelly detective Bosch himself. I was also told I wouldn’t have to read any other Bosch novels to get into this one, which was absolutely correct: the beauty of crime thrillers, is however formulaic, they’re relatively easy to pop in and out of without prior reading required. Although, “Desert Star” did feel like a series culmination, or at least a hint at one, so maybe knowing key elements of the rest of the books would be appropriate. The story was multi-layered and held a great balance between emotion and factuality, the characters were genuine and complex, and the pacing was pitch perfect. You’re not getting lost in literary mechanics here: this is as straight-forward as it gets. 

The repetitive over-explanation of certain processes was helpful at first but became somewhat condescending at times. Often, “He would know she said that because this,” turned into less an informative aside and more redundant handholding filler. Bosch is not exactly what I would call a good guy, either, but I suppose that’s the draw for many readers: America loves an outside of the law, gunslinger, bad boy cowboy cop. However, the reality of that was a little too on the nose and more uncomfortable than I thought it would be. ACAB, including Bosch.

3.5/5 I can never end up committing to full series because of an innate fault of my own personality :D but, I’d probably pick up another one of these for a quick weekend read, or another travel book.
Mr. Murder by Dean Koontz

Go to review page

challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

“‘Looks as if we might be standing hip-deep in gasoline, and someone just struck a match.’”

As another reviewer had mentioned, you kind of always know what you’re going to get with Koontz: fast action, soulful exploration (a bit tedious), a couple Plain Jane All-American Protagonists, and, most importantly, the good guy always wins. However, evil gets to be evil until usurped and, surprisingly, the touches of darkness in “Mr. Murder” were a hell of a lot more violent than I’d expected going in. The charming secondary and tertiary characters made up for the joyless parts of the plot, in true fashion: the man makes humans human real good…and bad. 

The MC was so dorky, and I know this was Koontz’ self-masturbatory “Secret Window” bullshit, so I feel a little bad, but god it was easy to say, “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the bad guy, uh…won?” Another example of Koontz creating badass love interests that should 100% be the main character instead. At times, the prose in “Mr. Murder” became a little sticky, and running through sentences meant potentially losing a shoe to the muck, and having to go back and retrieve it. 

3/5 This wasn’t the most batshit Koontz I’ve read, but it had its moments!
Expand filter menu Content Warnings
The Strange by Nathan Ballingrud

Go to review page

adventurous dark emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

“‘Did you find what you were looking for?’
‘I did.’
‘Is it enough?’”

When I tell you that *immediately* I knew this would be in my top five books of the year for 2025…in January. Heart warming, heart wrenching, heart warmching. Never knew I needed a western/sci-fi/horror like this in my life and now that it’s here, I’m a little more complete. Busy concept, perfect delivery. A sharp and stubborn perspective of fairness in a traitorous reality, a family cleaved apart, a vow of vengeance, in space! No, I don’t care if we can’t breathe on Mars and I also don’t care that Ballingrud didn’t explain that whatsoever: the world building didn’t require it. I’m not gonna micromanage a science fiction story about a girl with a robot butler looking for her lost mom’s voice recorder that was stolen by a troop of DEATH CULT MEMBERS. Put a little wonder in your life, dorks. 

Ending wrapped up way too quick ‘n’ pretty. Would have loved to see that drawn out a little more, pack a little flesh in. And I’d of course say that about any other story I really loved; I don’t ever want them to end! But, admittedly, it was typical of a western close. So, I’ll give him that. 

4.5/5 Fingers crossed for some kind of “Strange” players cameo in the “Crypt of the Moon Spider” world. 
The Dry by Jane Harper

Go to review page

dark mysterious tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No

4.5

“If I'd known, I would have done things differently. It was too late for that now. Some things had to be lived with.”

Started good, stayed good: can’t beat that. The sweltering heat, cloying drought, small town tension, old heartache, and new murders form the fist that lands this chin punch of a story. Harper sacrifices no style for accessibility: this was a really easy to follow, thorough, near perfect crime drama. 

Low risk, high reward. Not bland, exactly, but it was lacking the “thrill” part of the promised suspenseful narrative. Slow build, perfectly reasonable ending, but not a lot of “wow.”

4.5/5 Looks like the books got turned into a movie starring the dreamy Eric Bana so I know what I’m doing with my evening 😍